Saturday, February 17, 2018

Dreaming of Sweet Peas & other lovely things...

I don't know about you but I am in need of flowers.

Like plenty of Northern Hemisphere gardens ours is looking ever so glum at the moment. Winter shrubs are trying hard but we don’t have that many of them, whilst everything else just looks matted and muddy and messy. Add in a hefty gust of wind through the greenhouse which took out two panes of glass this week and there was the potential for a slough of despond...

I'd gone in to check my penstemon cuttings with which I am well pleased...

and something else with which I am also well-pleased..

Felt the breeze, saw the glass, swore a bit, put the big gloves on and picked up every last splinter before dogs and cat ran over it, but no matter because the good times are coming and I have been turning my thoughts to Things To Grow.

Last year was not a success. I mostly grew fodder for slugs and snails. Things of Beauty in their shells...

The Enemy when on the march. Here wilfully ignoring the gourmet pellets and tucking into the haute cuisine of a baby sunflower...

I spend far too much money on stuff to kill them, and hours wandering around with the salt at 10pm. Plenty of nights I’d come back in having scored a century and barely made an impression. My strategy was to take them out as they slithered across the grass, except the lawn was a mass of brown slurrified patches the next day so I had to give that one up. Anyway this year I am planning on a menu that the slugs will hate, except for the sweet peas which I can’t manage without.

Last year’s sweet peas were a disaster. They sort of withered on the vine before they’d even got started which we think was all about having them in the wrong place, it was cold and wet and there were slug battalions of course. It all means no sunflowers, no nicotiana, no allsortsof things, but it also means less feeling as if I am engaging in daily guerrilla warfare.

And so to the Something Else in the greenhouse.

I know this is really stupid and I won’t gain anything by having done it I’m sure, but everywhere was looking so dark and dank and gloomy a few weeks ago that I nipped out to the greenhouse and sowed a couple of dozen sweet pea seeds. I’d decided against autumn sowing, and trying to keep everything frost free all winter, but I suddenly just needed to feel as if I’d thwarted winter somehow. Sarah Raven suggests two thirds of damp compost, put the seed in, top up with dry compost and cover with newspaper....or was it two thirds dry compost and cover with damp? Well, never mind, they are out there, swaddled in newspaper and a top wrapping of thermal blanket, so if they need light they are doomed for now but at least they are warm. I am craving a lot of these...

I ordered the seeds from Ben at Higgledy Gardens, Mammoth and Charlie’s Angel along with some statice, salvia and cosmos which I am hoping are not top of the slug menu, and if anyone has anymore suggestions for a few more slug-hating annuals to accompany I would be very grateful for them. I have had poor results (probably my fault) with a lot of proprietary seed brands but I always have success with Higgledy Ben's.

And there must be some sweet pea experts out there... what are your top tips about pinching out and planting out and scaffolding and staking and feeding and things because I’m aiming for prolific again this year.

Last year I sowed African marigolds in pots for the greenhouse and it blazed a sunny orange through all the dull days, a real success, so I’ll be doing more of those too.

The perennials and biannuals are slowly making their mark year on year, the aquilegias now thrive and so far have stayed true to type...

and my dear dad's pride and joy, his dahlias...

Plus a growing swathe of honesty now which looks after itself..

Nasturtiums and and sweet william pop up wherever they like, along with the nigella. Also an increasing array of ornamental and oriental poppies of which I am overly proud even if they do last barely a day when they flower.

This is Checkers, grown from seed and I'm never doing that again. It took three years and a lot of nurturing to arrive at this, but now established it's a really exciting day when it flowers alongside Coral Reef

The roses are all behaving too. They seem to have wintered nicely in their tubs, soon be time for pruning and feeding. We hope for a glorious summer for Olivia Rose Austin and the gang

But it’s nice to slip some annual colour in amongst it all so all suggestions welcome.

Comments

Dreaming of Sweet Peas & other lovely things...

I don't know about you but I am in need of flowers.

Like plenty of Northern Hemisphere gardens ours is looking ever so glum at the moment. Winter shrubs are trying hard but we don’t have that many of them, whilst everything else just looks matted and muddy and messy. Add in a hefty gust of wind through the greenhouse which took out two panes of glass this week and there was the potential for a slough of despond...

I'd gone in to check my penstemon cuttings with which I am well pleased...

and something else with which I am also well-pleased..

Felt the breeze, saw the glass, swore a bit, put the big gloves on and picked up every last splinter before dogs and cat ran over it, but no matter because the good times are coming and I have been turning my thoughts to Things To Grow.

Last year was not a success. I mostly grew fodder for slugs and snails. Things of Beauty in their shells...

The Enemy when on the march. Here wilfully ignoring the gourmet pellets and tucking into the haute cuisine of a baby sunflower...

I spend far too much money on stuff to kill them, and hours wandering around with the salt at 10pm. Plenty of nights I’d come back in having scored a century and barely made an impression. My strategy was to take them out as they slithered across the grass, except the lawn was a mass of brown slurrified patches the next day so I had to give that one up. Anyway this year I am planning on a menu that the slugs will hate, except for the sweet peas which I can’t manage without.

Last year’s sweet peas were a disaster. They sort of withered on the vine before they’d even got started which we think was all about having them in the wrong place, it was cold and wet and there were slug battalions of course. It all means no sunflowers, no nicotiana, no allsortsof things, but it also means less feeling as if I am engaging in daily guerrilla warfare.

And so to the Something Else in the greenhouse.

I know this is really stupid and I won’t gain anything by having done it I’m sure, but everywhere was looking so dark and dank and gloomy a few weeks ago that I nipped out to the greenhouse and sowed a couple of dozen sweet pea seeds. I’d decided against autumn sowing, and trying to keep everything frost free all winter, but I suddenly just needed to feel as if I’d thwarted winter somehow. Sarah Raven suggests two thirds of damp compost, put the seed in, top up with dry compost and cover with newspaper....or was it two thirds dry compost and cover with damp? Well, never mind, they are out there, swaddled in newspaper and a top wrapping of thermal blanket, so if they need light they are doomed for now but at least they are warm. I am craving a lot of these...

I ordered the seeds from Ben at Higgledy Gardens, Mammoth and Charlie’s Angel along with some statice, salvia and cosmos which I am hoping are not top of the slug menu, and if anyone has anymore suggestions for a few more slug-hating annuals to accompany I would be very grateful for them. I have had poor results (probably my fault) with a lot of proprietary seed brands but I always have success with Higgledy Ben's.

And there must be some sweet pea experts out there... what are your top tips about pinching out and planting out and scaffolding and staking and feeding and things because I’m aiming for prolific again this year.

Last year I sowed African marigolds in pots for the greenhouse and it blazed a sunny orange through all the dull days, a real success, so I’ll be doing more of those too.

The perennials and biannuals are slowly making their mark year on year, the aquilegias now thrive and so far have stayed true to type...

and my dear dad's pride and joy, his dahlias...

Plus a growing swathe of honesty now which looks after itself..

Nasturtiums and and sweet william pop up wherever they like, along with the nigella. Also an increasing array of ornamental and oriental poppies of which I am overly proud even if they do last barely a day when they flower.

This is Checkers, grown from seed and I'm never doing that again. It took three years and a lot of nurturing to arrive at this, but now established it's a really exciting day when it flowers alongside Coral Reef

The roses are all behaving too. They seem to have wintered nicely in their tubs, soon be time for pruning and feeding. We hope for a glorious summer for Olivia Rose Austin and the gang

But it’s nice to slip some annual colour in amongst it all so all suggestions welcome.

Constants...

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